Reoffenders

(asked on 4th September 2017) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether the categories of crime which trigger a Serious Further Offence review have changed in the last 10 years.


Answered by
Sam Gyimah Portrait
Sam Gyimah
This question was answered on 12th September 2017

The table below provides the number of SFO reviews commenced in respect of offences allegedly committed by offenders who at the time were being supervised by the National Probation Service where the offender's period of supervision followed a prison sentence of 12 months or less in (a) 2015-16 and (b) 2016-17

Year

Number of reviews commenced

2015-2016

40

2016-2017

94

The table below provides the of SFO reviews commenced in respect of offences allegedly committed by offenders who at the time were being supervised by community rehabilitation companies where the offender's period of supervision followed a prison sentence of 12 months or less in (a) 2015-16 and (b) 2016-17

Year

Number of reviews commenced

2015-2016

27

2016-2017

72

Since the Government’s probation reforms, any offender who has served any time in prison will be subject to probation requirements. This means that the number of people on probation is significantly higher than it was before the reforms were introduced. It is, therefore, not possible to make a like-for like comparison between the numbers of serious further offences reviews undertaken before and after the reforms.

Keeping the public safe is our top priority and offenders on licence are subject to a strict set of conditions on release. A thorough investigation is always carried out when someone commits a serious further offence to see whether anything could have been done differently.

The categories of crime which trigger a SFO review were changed in 2008. The offence of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm was removed from the list of qualifying offences which trigger a mandatory SFO review. There have been no further change to the list of qualifying offences.

Reticulating Splines